Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a colony of the Netherlands from 1816 to 1949. The colony was formed from the nationalized colonies of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and the Dutch government expanded its colonies and its hegemony to include all of present-day Indonesia during the 19th and early 20th centuries, pacifying the East Indies by 1904. The Dutch East Indies had vast natural riches, and the Dutch profited from the spice and cash crop trades. The Dutch elite lived separate from but linked to their native subjects, who were virtually enslaved to work on Dutch plantations. In the early 20th century, local intellectuals began to form the idea of an independent "Indonesia", and the Dutch colonial state and economy was dismantled when Japan invaded and occupied the Dutch East Indies in 1942 during World War II. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Indonesian National Revolution immediately started, with Indonesian revolutionaries proclaiming independence. After four years of fighting, the Dutch agreed to grant Indonesia its independence, and it later ceded West Papua to Indonesia in 1963, completely evacuating its former colonies. In addition, the colonial capital of Batavia was renamed to Jakarta.